


If It Weren't for Those Goddamn Berries

by Dawn_Seeker



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hand Jobs, Handcuffs, M/M, Realization of Like, Smut, Unintentional flirting, accidental straddling, but not in a kinky way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-18 23:28:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12398445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawn_Seeker/pseuds/Dawn_Seeker
Summary: Speaking of Keith, he was currently squished tightly against Lance’s side and was slumped over, still unconscious, with his hair falling across his face. Lance took a moment to appreciate that he had woken up first, when he noticed a large metal band clamped around his left wrist. He pulled it closer for further inspection and was surprised to see that Keith’s right arm came too.





	If It Weren't for Those Goddamn Berries

Today was going to be a great day for Lance. 

Despite having to run a few training exercises in the lions to keep in top shape -- which Lance was obviously in--today was team Voltron’s first day off in weeks. That meant there were no Galra to fight, no alien civilizations to save, and no almost dying in the process. Lance had an awesome day planned full of naps, eating Hunk’s increasingly delicious kitchen experiments, and trying to figure out a complicated Altean board game Pidge discovered in the storage room. It was going to be amazing. 

Or it would have been if Allura hadn’t called all the paladins to the bridge to inform them that they needed to travel to the opposite side of Vuebos, the planet currently on, to collect some strange berry thing. Apparently this berry (Lance had already forgotten the name) could be used as an ointment to treat burns until they visited a planet where they could restock on the usual, more advanced medication they had recently run out of. 

In an attempt to get out of becoming Farmer John on his day off, Lance said in his most flattering voice, “That sounds like tons of fun Princess, really, but that doesn’t seem like a job that requires all five members of Voltron, right?”

“I suppose you are right, Lance,” the princess replied with a bright smile. “You can go and collect what we need, I don’t think it will take too long. The blue lion still needs some repairs after our last battle, but why don’t you go down and ready one of the pods? I can send the exact coordinates to you there.” 

Lance had in no way meant to volunteer himself for this mission --if you could even call it that. He suspected that this was actually Allura’s revenge at him for almost stepping on one of the mice the day before. 

“You sure you can handle such a complicated mission on your own, Lance?” Keith challenged from where he was leaning casually against the wall, arms crossed and smirk on full display.

“Perhaps it would be better to have two paladins collect the berries. Keith, you will go with Lance.” Allura said, her smile still in place. 

Keith whipped his head around to look at Allura, mouth opening to object. “That’s not what I--”

“What’s a matter, Keith? Afraid picking berries out in the sunshine will ruin that bad boy image of yours?” Lance interrupted with the most shit-eating grin he could muster. 

\--------

An hour later Lance and Keith were indeed out picking berries in the sunshine.

“Aw, man. This is so boring,” Lance whined as he reached through the brambles of the bush for another whatever berry, which turned out to be almost the exact same shade of orange as Coran’s mustache. A sudden prick of pain pierced his forefinger and small droplets of blood rushed forth. “Quiznak! If I get stabbed by one more thorn I’m going to lose my mind!”

“Pretty sure you lost it a while ago,” Keith said as he reached into the devil bush and brought out a berry without a single scratch.

Lance shot him his best glare and stuck his tongue out at him. “Don’t be rude, Mullet,” he grumbled, unable to think of a witty comeback. 

Keith chuckled softly and went back to gathering the orange berries. Lance watched as he reached high up on the thorny bush, his arm and back muscles flexing under his stupidly tight black shirt as he gently separated another berry from its stem. How was Keith making this dumb task look like a graceful stretching exercise? Lance hated that. Why did Keith make everything look ten times cooler? As if to support this, Keith tossed the berry into the designated Berry Collecting Bucket behind him without even looking at it. Yeah, that guy was the worst. 

Well, Lance could make stuff look cool too. To prove it, he sauntered over to a nearby tree so he could climb it and pick berries from one of the lower branches that hung over the tallest section of the berry bush. That would definitely look cool. Just as cool as Keith and all his...muscles. 

Except he didn’t make it to the tree. 

Lance took about five steps forward before a giant net sprang up from underneath the leaf covered ground and lifted him high into the air. He definitely did not make an undignified squawking noise as his stomach jumped to his throat and he swung back and forth uncontrollably. The world below was spinning violently and his lunch was threatening to make a reappearance. He closed his eyes until the spinning slowed and he was left gently swaying side to side. When he looked, Keith was leaning against a tree, arms crossed, watching Lance with an amused expression on his face. 

“Huh,” was all Keith said.

“‘Huh’?” Lance practically screeched. “That’s your reaction to watching me getting snatched from the ground by a giant net? Not ‘Lance, are you okay?’ or, ‘oh, maybe I should help get him down’?” he said in what he considered to be an excellent Keith impression, only half-mocking him in the process.

Keith bit his lip in an obvious attempt to suppress a laugh. Lance noticed his shoulders shaking though and narrowed his eyes in annoyance.

“I don’t know, Lance,” Keith sounded far too happy. “You look pretty good up there, I’m not sure I want to get you down.”

“WHAT? You can’t just leave me up here! I’ll tell Shiro!” Lance spluttered.

“Okay, okay,” Keith said after pretending to think about it. He pushed off of the tree and started toward Lance. Only he didn’t get there, because about ten feet from where Lance had been attacked by the evil net, another net sprang up and took Keith with it. There was some pretty epic swearing that would’ve earned Keith a sharp “Keith!” from Shiro if he’d heard it. Keith wriggled and squirmed in his net as it whirled around crazily. Lance waited patiently until he eventually gave up struggling against his net and slumped heavily in defeat.

Keith looked at Lance.

Lance looked at Keith.

“Don’t. You. Dare,” Keith warned.

Lance couldn’t help himself; a great roar of laughter burst forth before he could stop it. If he’d been on the ground, he would have been rolling around helplessly, unable to support himself on his own legs. As it was, he had to wipe tears from his eyes. When he had calmed down a bit, he glanced over at Keith, surprised to see a wide grin on his face that made his dimples especially prominent, and he was laughing. 

“You look ridiculous,” Lance managed between giggles. And it was true, Keith’s legs were sticking up straight so that his body formed a sort of L shape. One of his arms was twisted behind his back and hanging outside of the net.

“Like you’re any better,” Keith shot back, but he was still smiling, his whole face lit up. Lance had never actually seen Keith smile like that before, or maybe he had, but Lance hadn’t been paying attention. Right now, however, he was laughing so hard that his eyes were squeezed shut, giving Lance a moment to take in the whole image. It really was a sight to see-- Keith, grumpiest grump that ever lived, hanging from a net nearly fifteen feet in the air and laughing his head off at the ridiculousness of the situation. It was a side of Keith that Lance hadn’t even known existed, and he was definitely going to make fun of him for it later. 

The lightheartedness of the moment didn’t last long. Before they could even begin to strategize on how to escape the nets, a yell broke the quiet of the forest and was followed by the hum of an engine. Several engines.

“That can’t be good.” 

“You think?” hissed Keith.

Seconds later, six hovercrafts sped into view. They came to an abrupt halt not too far from where Lance and Keith were and immediately, dozens of small pink aliens jumped out of the hovercrafts. They hurtled toward them in a weird type of run that reminded Lance of crabs scuttling. When the crowd came to a stop directly under him and Keith, Lance was able to get a better look and decided that these aliens actually did seem pretty crab like. Although they walked on two feet, their legs were short and bent and they were likely no more than three feet tall. They shuffled back and forth as they gazed up at them. Lance would have thought they were kind of cute had they not all been equipped with impressive looking firearms, swords, and other painful looking weapons. 

“Uh...we come in peace?” Lance tried hopefully.

What looked like the leader alien (it had a fancy hat, so he assumed it was the leader) stepped forward and cocked its head at them. It said something in a strange gurgling language and looked at them expectantly. Lance glanced at Keith, who shrugged and wiggled in his net so he could reach the bayard attached to his hip. Unfortunately, the crab aliens noticed this and started chattering angrily at them. Keith immediately stopped his movement and attempted to put his hands above his head to show he wasn’t going to reach for his weapon. 

The leader crab alien shushed the rest of the group and then gurgled quietly to an older looking crab person next to it. After a few seconds, the leader motioned to another member of the party, who raised what Lance seriously hoped was just a tranquilizer gun at him. 

“No, no, no, no!” he shouted, raising his arms up to try and block his body from whatever he was about to be hit with, but it didn’t work. A small green dart lodged itself in his thigh and he was unconscious within seconds. 

\----------

When Lance woke up, he found himself staring out the back of a hovercraft. It took him a few seconds to remember what had happened and piece together that he must have been taken hostage. The lush forest of Vuebos flashed by as they sped along just a few feet off the ground. The trees he managed to glimpse as they zoomed past looked similar to the ones he and Keith had been dangling from, but he couldn’t tell if they were still in the same area. They could have been miles from where they had landed the pod. Speaking of Keith, he was currently squished tightly against Lance’s side and was slumped over, still unconscious, with his hair falling across his face. Lance took a moment to appreciate that he had woken up first, when he noticed a large metal band clamped around his left wrist. He pulled it closer for further inspection and was surprised to see that Keith’s right arm came too. 

“Oh, shit.” Lance muttered as he spotted an identical band around Keith’s right wrist and realized they were handcuffed together. He grabbed Keith’s arm and gently pulled it away from his own, testing the give of the handcuffs. They separated slightly but were quickly snapped back together by a strange, elastic energy. Lance knew from the time Coran had handcuffed the paladins together as a bonding exercise that space handcuffs were extremely hard to get out of.

This was bad. The universe must have really hated him. That was the only explanation for this completely unfair turn of events. Lance could be in the same room as Keith for about nine minutes (Pidge had timed him) before the irresistible urge to push his buttons took over and they ended up arguing until someone (Shiro) intervened. It wasn’t like he planned on getting Keith all riled up, but he couldn’t help himself. Apart from the guy just plain getting on Lance’s nerves and making him feel weirdly competitive, it was incredibly entertaining to see how Lance could make Keith react. Now however, the prospect of being handcuffed to him until they could get back to the castle was terrifying. They would probably end up killing each other.

After coming to this unfortunate conclusion, Lance remembered that although he and Keith had not put their armor on before leaving the castle --it wasn’t like they had expected anything to happen while picking berries-- they had brought their bayards, just in case. Lance looked all around them, but neither his nor Keith’s bayards were anywhere in sight. The crab aliens must have confiscated them. Well, at least he and Keith would have a harder time killing each other.

Keith began to stir just as Lance was starting to think they might be royally screwed. He sat up and blinked at Lance. There was a moment where he just stared at him, his lips parted slightly in confusion. Then he seemed to remember what had happened and he spun around to survey their surroundings. 

“Where are we?” he asked, going from asleep to ready to kick alien ass in record breaking time. 

“No idea, I’m not sure how long we were out. They’ve also taken our bayards,” Lance lifted their wrists up so Keith could see the handcuffs connecting the two of them. “and we’ve got this huge problem.”

Keith looked from where the handcuffs linked them together and then up to Lance’s face, unable to hide his sickened expression. “Oh, God” he whispered and then shook his head as if to clear it. “Unfortunately, I think that’s the least of our problems. We need to get our bayards and get off this thing before we get any further away from the pod.”

“Um, I don’t know what’s wrong with your priorities but I think the whole being handcuffed together thing is like number one on the list of problems we’ve currently got.”

“Lance,” Keith said through obviously gritted teeth. The look he sent him clearly said ‘if you don’t shut up right now I’m going to knock you unconscious again’. 

“Alright, fine. What do we do?” They were in what appeared to be the trunk of the hovercraft. It was roughly the size of a queen sized bed, and while it didn’t have a roof, the part that Lance assumed must contain the pilot did, making it difficult to tell who was inside and what was happening. However there was a window, about three feet wide, not too far above where Lance and Keith were sitting. 

Keith stood up slowly, dragging Lance’s arm with him. He paused just underneath the window and then rose the last few inches to glance around quickly. After a few seconds he sunk back down to sit next to Lance. 

“Okay, there are four of them seated in there, two in the front, two in the back. I can see our bayards on top of a box between the two in the back. I think if we lift open the window, I can reach in and grab them really quickly and then we can take them out.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? What if they see you? They had some pretty impressive looking fire power.”

“Got a better idea?” It was physically painful for Lance to admit that he did not in fact have a better idea, but he couldn’t think of any other way to escape. They needed their bayards and if they didn’t act soon, they may not have another chance.

“Alright, fine. But be careful, I don’t want to get knocked out again.”

They stood up and stationed themselves on opposite sides of the window. The handcuffs pulled a little but they managed to keep out of sight. As quietly as possible, they each took a corner of the window and began to slide it up as far as it would go. When it was open to it’s fullest extent, Keith positioned himself just underneath it and used his forearms to lift himself up slightly. He paused for a moment and then ducked the front half of his body through the window. Lance’s arm got tugged along and he found the left side of his body pushed against the right side of Keith’s lower body and his face smashed against the wall next to the window. It was hard to look anywhere but at Keith’s butt and Lance hated it. The dude even had a nicer ass than he did. Would the injustice never end?

Keith shifted a little allowing Lance to see a small sliver of the room. One of the crab aliens was sitting just a few feet away with an intimidating blaster in his lap, but he didn’t seem to have noticed them. Lance couldn’t see what Keith was doing but he hoped he was hurrying because this was getting uncomfortable really fast. The hovercraft took a sharp turn and Lance grasped frantically at the material of Keith’s pants to keep him from falling all the way through the window. Supporting his theory that the universe was out to get him, the only part of Keith’s pants Lance managed to get a hold of was his back pocket. Right on top of the stupid ass that Lance decided should be totally illegal. Luckily, Keith didn’t fall through the window, which was great, but the crab aliens had definitely noticed them, and Lance saw the one with the huge blaster turn around and aim it right at Keith’s head. 

Keith threw himself out of the window just as a shot from the gun blew a chunk out of the metal above where his head had been. Lance caught sight of their bayards clutched tightly in Keith’s hand, but didn’t have a chance to celebrate before Keith shouted a quick, “Gotta go!” and jumped off the edge of the hovercraft. 

Lance thought it was a very stupid move considering how fast they were going and he really didn’t want to jump. Technically, he didn’t jump. Technically, his body was yanked off by the momentum of Keith’s jump and he had no choice but to accept his fate as he sailed through the air. 

Landing hurt like a bitch and both of them rolled and tumbled all over the place. Keith’s knee connected with Lance’s stomach and he wasn’t convinced it was accidental. But then the tumbling stopped and he didn’t even have time to let his head stop spinning before Keith pulled him to his feet and started running. Keith shoved Lance’s bayard into his free hand as laser blasts rained down around them. They ran as hard and fast as they could, which they were getting pretty good at, being the defenders of the universe and all that. Their hands kept bumping awkwardly which Lance did he best not to think about, but Keith just snatched Lance’s hand in his own like it wasn’t a huge deal (it was, because ew). They ran until the trees became so dense that the managed to lose the hovercraft carrying the horrible crab aliens. 

They gradually slowed their pace to a quick walk and once they were sure there weren’t any aliens lurking nearby, they stopped to rest (thankfully Keith let go of Lance’s hand). Lance’s lungs felt like they were going to burst and he was doing his best to ignore the painful stitch in his side. If he’d known they were going to be running for their lives today, he would have worn something a bit more appropriate than jeans and a tee shirt and he definitely would have stretched. He saw Keith wiping sweat from his forehead and felt a little better knowing he wasn’t the only one feeling the effects of their spontaneous run.

“Well this sucks,” Lance complained as he plopped down on a log.

“No kidding,” Keith agreed as he eyed the handcuffs with obvious disdain. He activated his bayard. “Hold still for a second, I’m gonna cut these stupid things off.”

“Woah, what?” Lance exclaimed. “Like hell I’m gonna let you swing that thing near any of my precious limbs. No way!” 

“It’ll be fine. I know what I’m doing,” Keith insisted while moving to stand to the left of where Lance was sitting. He pulled on the cuffs and the elastic band of energy appeared again briefly before the handcuffs clicked together again. 

“No, not happening. You’d have to use your left hand and the angle would be all wrong. One of us would end up as Captain Hook.” Lance said frantically. 

“Just keep your arm still so the handcuffs don’t snap back together right away,” Keith replied, completely ignoring what Lance had just said. Keith activated his bayard and gripped it firmly in his left hand, looking so confident that Lance grew even more nervous. With their arms resting on the log, Keith raised his bayard and pulled the handcuffs apart so he could slice through whatever it was connecting them. Lance watched in horror as Keith’s sword hit the elastic energy about a centimeter from Lance’s hand before bouncing back. Lance stared between them at the handcuffs. Whatever it was that held them together seemed totally unharmed and the cuffs shot back together as if nothing had happened. 

“You almost cut off my hand!” Lance practically yelled.

“No I didn’t,” Keith argued, inspecting his bayard like something was wrong with it. “Maybe I should try again with more force?”

“No!” Lance shouted, waving their connected hands around so Keith wouldn’t have a clear shot. “A thousand times no. If you try to do that again I will blast you!” It was an empty threat, but he hoped it was enough to get Keith to back off.

Keith sighed and deactivated his bayard. “Fine, I won’t try it again. I was just trying to save both of us from what’s to come.” 

“Yes, I agree this is going to royally suck, but am I that annoying that you need to risk chopping off someone’s hand?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?” Keith asked with a knowing look.

Lance glared at him. “Oh please, I’m the one who’s going to be having a harder time. You’re the most irritating person ever.”

“Sure, you keep telling yourself that,” Keith told him lightly. He attached his bayard to his hip and looked at Lance expectantly. Lance stood up and put away his own bayard, fighting the desire to make a funny face at the back of Keith’s head when he turned around. 

The started off in a random direction, keeping their eyes peeled for any unwelcome crab people. The ground beneath their feet gradually sloped upwards until they found themselves trudging up a hill. After a few minutes they reached the top. The view from the hill allowed them to see for miles all around, but it all looked the same. Apparently, there was nothing but forest on this god forsaken planet; the treetops seemed to extend endlessly in every direction. Nothing looked more familiar than anything else and Lance had no clue where the castle and the rest of the team would be. It seemed like a total crapshoot.

“Which way do we go?” he wondered out loud, because he was getting nowhere in the planning department by himself.

“That way,” Keith replied, pointing in a direction that didn’t look any more promising than all the other directions.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Keith sounded totally sure. Annoyingly sure, in fact. How the hell could he be so sure?

“How do you know?”

“Instinct.”

“...’Instinct?’” Lance repeated. “You want to wander in a random direction on a strange planet crawling with crab aliens that want to kill us, based on instinct?”

“Yes.” Keith was serious. He looked at Lance like that was all the information he should need to blindly follow him to their possible death.

“Dude, your instincts aren’t always right. Remember on that one planet when you were convinced that a robot was trying to kill you and it was actually just a portable toaster?”

“That was a one time thing. Besides, you don’t look like you have a better idea.”

“Yeah, actually, I do. Why don’t we just stay where we are and wait until the team can locate us?” Lance flapped his arms around for extra emphasis. Keith scowled at him for causing his arms to thrash about alongside Lance’s.

“How would they be able to locate us? We aren’t wearing our armor and aren’t anywhere near the pod, in case you hadn’t noticed. If we stay here, those aliens could just come after us on foot and finish us off and since we’re at a bit of a disadvantage right now, they might actually be able to.” he nodded toward the handcuffs.

“Well maybe you should have looked for a key to these stupid things while you were in there with the aliens!” Lance said bitterly.

“I could have been shot if I had done that. There was no way I could get our bayards, steal a key off one of those guys, and keep all of my limbs attached to my body,” Keith fired back fiercely.

“Well if the limb you lost was your right hand it would have been worth it because we wouldn’t still be stuck together!” 

Keith let out a frustrated growl and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. Lance’s arm flopped along uselessly and he was forced to lean all the way into Keith’s personal bubble: a bubble he had been trying very hard not to fall into because Keith did not seem like the kind of guy who welcomed others into his personal space very easily.

Lance sighed, his arm pulled all the way over Keith’s chest and his face dangerously close to Keith’s. “Alright, Mullet, I know that your Resting Bitch Posture demands that you keep your arms crossed pretty much all the time, but that’s not really gonna work right now. Unless, of course, you want me all up in your business.” He included an eyebrow wiggle and his famous smirk to try and lighten the mood a little bit. 

Keith looked at him, a slightly confused look on his face. He stared for a while before Lance realized that his attempts to ease the tension must have actually come off as more… well, as more flirtatious. It may have also sounded pretty damn suggestive. Now that Lance thought about it, he may have even used a similar line on an alien girl a few planets back. 

Fuck. That was not what he had been trying to do. That was the opposite of what he had been trying to do! He wanted to get out of Keith’s space, not flirt his way further into it! Lance cursed his overly flirtatious personality. 

“Uh, that’s not-- I mean, I didn’t… ” Oh god, that made no sense. Where were the words that made sense when he needed them!?

Lance went through about six different kinds of crises in thirty seconds, and all Keith did was raise one confused eyebrow at him. His face might have been slightly pinker than normal, but Lance was definitely not going to classify it as blushing. Keith did, however, look more uncomfortable than Lance had ever seen him. His face did this weird thing where he looked kind of like he might be sick. He still hadn’t uncrossed his arms and the muscles there looked so tense that Lance worried briefly that Keith might punch him. 

“Just put me out of my misery,” Lance mumbled covering his one thousand degree face with his free hand.

It took Keith a minute to respond. He coughed awkwardly, but then, “Nah, watching you suffer is much more fun.”

Lance peeked out from underneath his hand to look at him. He wished he hadn’t. The bastard had totally changed his expression and even had the nerve to quirk up the corners of his mouth in an amused sort of expression. Lance was dying and Keith was smirking at him. Life could not get worse.

\---------

Life did get worse. There were several reasons for this, first of which being that he had to live with the memory of flirting with Keith. Keith, his rival and the biggest pain in Lance’s ass to have ever existed. The second reason was because Lance realized that the flirting had happened naturally. He hadn’t been flirting to make Keith uncomfortable (although that had happened), and he wasn’t flirting to make fun of him either. He had just done it, without thinking and without hesitation. That was fucking terrifying. But it didn’t mean anything, obviously. It was just his innate predisposition to try and seduce anything with two legs (or more depending on the species) that had caused the whole incident to occur in the first place. There was no reason to read too much into the whole, totally awkward situation. 

Oh, and they were still handcuffed to each other. 

So while Lance was reliving the moment The Flirting had happened and wondering just how hard he would have to run into a tree to kill himself, Keith started dragging him in the direction his ‘instincts’ told him was the way to go. Lance still firmly believed that they should not be wandering further into unknown territory, but he also wasn’t prepared to open his traitorous mouth and argue any further. 

Keith led them down the hill and through the forest, while Lance trailed along a step behind trying to get his brain to function normally again. In the meantime, he took a second to admire their surroundings. Through the treetops, he could see that the sun had gone down noticeably since the net incident. There were probably only a few hours of sunlight left. That was going to be a problem, but Lance tried to focus on how pretty the light filtering in through the trees looked instead. If he hadn’t decided that this planet was the worst place in the universe, he might have actually considered it peaceful. There were birds in the trees chirping happily to each other, and he saw a bunny-like creature nibbling on some grass nearby, which would’ve been super cute if he hadn’t been more worried about the epic rugburn starting up on his wrist where the handcuff kept catching on his skin. 

For a while, the only sound was the crunching of dry leaves and twigs under their feet, but it didn’t take long for the silence between them to start making Lance uncomfortable. He’d never really been good with staying quiet for prolonged periods of time, no matter who he was with. Maybe it had only been ten minutes or so since they had stopped talking, but it felt like an eternity. It made him nervous, being alone with Keith and neither one of them saying anything. Before long, his restless energy got the better of him and he decided to hum quietly to himself so he wouldn’t go crazy from the overwhelming silence.

“Do you have to do that?” Keith snapped less than two minutes later.

“Well, excuse me for trying to fill the silence and bring some joy to our lives.” 

“I preferred the quiet,” Keith countered and continued walking. 

“I happen to be a fantastic hummer, Keith. Everyone says so.” he insisted as he stuck his nose up in the air. It took him a second to realize the full implications behind that statement and he silently prayed to every god ever worshiped throughout time and space that Keith would completely miss the innuendo like he normally did. 

“They were lying.” Keith said, and thank god. Usually Keith’s ignorance to sexual jokes would have given Lance plenty of reason to mock him, but right now he was trying really hard to avoid more accidentally suggestive remarks.

Instead, Lance did his best to move the conversation along and away from the danger zone. “Fine, I’ll stop humming. But I don’t do well with silence so we’re gonna have to talk like civilized people.” Keith scrunched up his nose in a face that clearly said he would rather dance with Zarkon than have a conversation with Lance. “It’s one or the other man, take it or leave it.”

Keith groaned and considered the offer for a moment as he stepped over a log. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but somehow talking to you might actually be better than listening to your tone-deaf humming.”

There was a pause for several seconds as Keith obviously waited for Lance to initiate some kind of conversation. He and Keith had never just chatted with each other before, so coming up with a topic was taking more effort than anticipated. He glanced around at their surroundings for inspiration, but Keith didn’t seem like the type that would enjoy discussing trees. He also ruled out suggesting a game of Eye Spy because Keith probably hated fun and again, there were really only trees. Eventually, he decided on something that probably would not result in them fighting. 

“Do you think the rest of the team’s realized something has happened to us?”

Keith shrugged. “They weren’t expecting us back until sundown, so probably not.” 

“Great, so we have a couple more hours before they even realize something is wrong.” Lance sighed dramatically and glared at the handcuffs, willing them to snap open with his mind. 

“Yep,” Keith replied, popping the ‘p’. His tone made it clear that this regrettable bit of information had already occurred to him and he was completely aware that they would probably drive each other insane long before the team noticed that it should not take this long to pick a bucket of stupid berries.

After that, as much as Lance wanted to keep talking, even his almost superhuman ability to keep a conversation going was not enough to save their brief exchange. The lull they fell into was more comfortable than the last, but Lance still didn’t like it. He was racking his brain trying to think of something that he could talk about that wouldn’t sound completely lame, but he couldn’t think of anything. It was Keith’s fault, he thought. If he wasn’t so damn mysterious and hard to figure out, he would have no trouble talking his ear off. 

As they continued endlessly through the forest, Lance’s stomach chose a particularly quiet moment to gurgle loudly, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten much before they left the castle. Keith turned to him in surprise and swept his eyes over Lance, not understanding where the noise had come from.

“That was, uh, my tummy,” Lance explained. 

“Your...tummy?” Keith did the eyebrow thing again.

“Yeah.” 

“You use the word ‘tummy’ for your stomach?” Keith asked, not even bothering to hide the laugh at the end of his sentence. 

Lance stood up to his full height and puffed out his chest “So? That’s what my mom always called it. Gotta a problem with that, Mullet?” He lowered his voice on the last question trying to make it known that he was still hella manly.

“No, it’s actually not at all surprising.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lance demanded.

“Nothing, but you behave like a six year old so it makes sense that you would talk like one too,” he teased, a mischievous glint in his eyes. 

Lance gaped at him. “Excuse me? I’ll have you know I’m very mature for my age.”

“And who told you that, your mom?” 

Lance’s face grew hot at the taunt and he narrowed his eyes in what he hoped was clear frustration. Keith threw him a sly smile over his shoulder and stepped forward to move a low branch out of his way. Lance was busy sneering at the back of his head and preparing to fire back his killer comeback when Keith let go of the branch and it snapped back, whacking Lance straight in the face. He stumbled backwards while Keith laughed loudly at him, one hand clutching his stomach as his entire body shook. 

Rubbing his still tingling cheek, Lance grabbed the same tree branch that had just smacked him and pulled it back. He waited patiently until Keith looked at him again, saw the flicker of recognition in his eyes, and then let the branch fly. It soared through the air and connected with the side of Keith’s head in a satisfying thwap. Keith wobbled for a moment and then lost balance, falling to the ground. Lance felt the pull of the handcuff around his wrist and tried for a brief moment to keep himself from careening forward, but there was no point. He went sailing through the air, arms flailing, and landed heavily on top of Keith. 

He grunted noisily and lay there for a moment recovering. Then he realized that he was laying completely on top of Keith with all their body parts awkwardly squished together and their bayards poking uncomfortably into his side. Lance lifted himself up, his hands planted on the ground on either side of Keith’s head. Keith was staring up at him with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open. His hair was a mess, possibly from the tumble to the ground but probably also because of the branch hitting him in the head. Lance blinked a few times just to be sure, but when he looked, there was no denying it--Keith was blushing. His cheeks were flushed bright red and it seemed to spread as Lance watched. 

Lance gulped when he realized that Keith was staring at him like that because he had one leg on either side of his hips, effectively straddling him. He glanced down to see if it really looked as bad as he thought and yup, it did. He was sitting on Keith’s crotch. Even worse, was the fact that Keith’s shirt had ridden up, exposing a large portion of his muscular stomach. Lance could see his boxers peeking out from under the waistband of his pants and gulped again, suddenly unable to look at anything else. Oh god, what was he doing? He really needed to look away but he couldn’t, his eyes were glued there, staring at Keith’s stomach as it rose and fell quickly. 

“Um,” Keith choked out. Hearing him speak somehow gave Lance the power to tear his gaze away and he swept his eyes over the rest of him before glancing back at Keith’s still blushing face.

Oh. 

Oh, no.

Lance felt like he had been hit in the chest with a truck. His breath caught and his heart sped up like he had just barely escaped a fight with the Galra. His own cheeks were unbearably hot and his face must have been as red as Keith’s because all of a sudden, he knew. He knew why he teased Keith and thought he was so effortlessly cool. He knew why he tried to outdo him on everything and did stupid things to get his attention. It was because he-- dear god, he liked Keith. Liked him as in like liked. The kind of like that made you put your lion into a nose dive until the very last second in the hopes of impressing them but ending up crashing straight into the planet’s surface instead. 

It seemed so obvious now that he was sitting on top of Keith and basically pinning him to the ground that that was what it was. All those times he had done dumb shit hoping Keith would notice and realize how awesome Lance was suddenly had a whole new meaning. He hadn’t just been after his respect, he wanted more than that. He wanted Keith to be interested in him in a very different, very physical way. Damn, he was screwed. 

The whole Revelation of Like could have happened in five seconds or five minutes, Lance wasn’t sure. But it was clear that he had been sitting on Keith’s hips for longer than was normal without making a move to get off. Keith glanced down to where Lance’s ass was sitting on his… wherever and visibly struggled to swallow. His cheeks were still flushed in a way that really shouldn’t have pulled on Lance’s heart and he was staring at their hips with his mouth open. Normally, Lance would have been extremely smug at getting that kind of flustered response out of Keith, but right now Lance was trying really hard not to stare at his mouth because his mind was being assaulted with a variety of images featuring those lips and--shit. He needed to get away. Far away. 

Far away was about two feet to the right. He flopped gracelessly off of Keith and sat there glaring at the ground so Keith couldn’t see how erratic his breathing had become. Several minutes passed with neither of them moving and Lance wondered briefly if he had broken Keith. Then Lance felt him shift and when he glanced over, Keith was facing away but sitting up with his knees pressed to his chest and his left arm wrapped around them, the right laying on the ground still tragically attached to Lance’s. Keith’s shirt was pushed up slightly so he could see a little sliver of the side of his stomach now, which proved to be just as alarmingly distracting as the face full of abs and boxers had been. The urge to reach out and touch Keith’s skin had Lance forcing his gaze back to the ground and desperately thinking un-sexy thoughts. 

The awkwardness between them grew with each passing minute. Lance had gotten his breathing under control and his hormones in check but his heart kept racing. His stomach had joined the party too, attempting to claw its way up and out of his throat. It was all getting to be too much. One of them had to do something so they could move past this moment, but Keith seemed committed to not looking at him for the rest of his life, so it was up to Lance. 

“Um,” he started, not sure what he should say after that. Should he apologize for putting his ass on Keith’s groin? Should he attempt to lighten the mood by making fun of him or telling him that he deserved the embarassment for hitting him with the branch first?

“Water,” Keith croaked and abruptly jumped to his feet. He pointedly faced away from Lance and used his free hand to adjust his pants (Lance was absolutely not looking at Keith’s ass) and pull down his shirt. Keith waited until Lance had pushed himself up and then marched off, looking everywhere except Lance. 

This time the silence between them was so thick, Lance wasn’t sure his words would make it through if he tried to talk. Between the unintentional flirting, the accidental straddling, and realizing he had a thing for Keith, Lance wasn’t sure how much more he could take. Why was the universe conspiring against him like this?

He peeked over at Keith to see if he had recovered yet. The hand cuffed to Lance was balled into a fist and the muscles up his arm were flexed. He still wouldn’t look at him either, always making sure he was ahead of him so Lance couldn’t see his front. Not that the view of the back of him was bad and-- ugh, that was awful. Was he going to check out Keith’s ass now? Apparently, yes.

After a few more minutes of tromping through the forest, Keith slowed down enough so that he and Lance were walking side by side. “There’s a river over there,” he said, voice still rough. Lance looked to where he had indicated and saw that there was indeed a river. He probably wouldn’t have noticed if Keith hadn’t said anything. He was still trying to forget how disgustingly good it had felt to be that close to Keith.

When they reached the river, Keith knelt down and cupped his hand, dipping it into the river. He brought a handful of water to his mouth and took an appreciative drink. Lance followed the movement of his mouth as he repeated the action. Droplets of water clung to his lips, some falling to his chin where they rolled down his neck. That shouldn’t have been as enticing as it was. Lance tried to think of something he could make fun of to make the image of Keith on his knees less appealing but oh, fuck. That really wasn’t the way he should have worded that. The onslaught of images his brain bombarded him with were amazing and horrible at the same time. 

How could Lance have been so clueless? How had he not realized sooner that he had a crush on Keith? He’d always known that Keith was an attractive guy, but he’d never associated the fact that he could watch him on the training deck for hours to anything other than jealousy. And yeah, Lance was jealous of what Keith could do so easily but now it struck him that he was envious that Keith didn’t pay attention to him the way he did to Keith. It was really obvious now that he thought about it that he had been crushing on Keith hardcore since all the way back at the Garrison. 

“Don’t you want some?” Keith asked, his voice snapping Lance out of his thoughts. Had he been staring? God, he hoped not. 

“Yeah,” Lance managed and sunk down to the ground to hastily drink some water. He got water all down his front and over his face in the process but at least the dry mouth he had apparently gotten from ogling Keith was better. 

When he turned back to Keith, Lance saw that he was looking at somewhere near Lance’s jaw with a strange expression on his face. Keith glanced away and cleared his throat before saying sarcastically, “Well that was graceful,” and indicated to Lance’s wet tee shirt. 

Finally, Lance thought. Keith had broken down that barrier and now Lance could crack a joke and they could go back to arguing. “Clearly, I meant to do that. I am the blue paladin, you know. My lion and I are the most skilled when it comes to water-based activities.” 

“That must be why you’re wearing half the river on your shirt.”

“Duh,” Lance insisted and felt a flutter in his stomach when Keith smirked at him and rolled his offensively pretty eyes. Lance felt his heartbeat speed up noticeably. How utterly pathetic. Lance made a mental note to smack himself later.

“So, should we keep going?” Keith asked, glancing up at the sky. “The sun is pretty close to the horizon, I don’t know how much light we have left.”

“Yeah, sure.” They started off again, staying close to the river this time so they’d have something to follow. The sun continued to sink lower as they made their way through the forest, the shadows of the trees growing longer on the forest floor. Lance was glad they had moved past the awkwardness from before and found that this time he didn’t feel the need to talk constantly, if he did, there was no telling what embarrassing thing would happen next and he had lived through enough of that for one day. For a whole lifetime even.

About an hour later, the sun had set and only a little bit of light was remaining. Lance was exhausted, his feet hurt from all the running and walking they’d been doing, and he was still hungry. But the biggest issue he currently had, was that he needed to pee. But there was no way he could do that with Keith attached to one of his hands. He refused to even entertain the idea. 

Ten minutes later he had to go so bad that he had no choice but to say something. “Uh, Keith, I have a slight problem.” 

“What?” Keith sighed.

“I need to pee,” he admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Keith groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Trust me, my dude, I really wish I was,” Lance said in complete honesty. There was a whole list of things that he would rather do than pee with Keith standing two feet away but at this point the alternative would be ruining his pants, and somehow that was worse.

Keith gave him a ‘you are the most annoying person on the planet’ eyeroll and turned away. “Could you close your eyes?” Lance asked and he actually tried to be polite about it. 

Keith let out an exaggerated huff and threw his free arm over his eyes. When Lance was sure he wasn’t being watched, he unzipped his pants and took care of business, making sure to keep Keith’s hand as far from everything as possible. It wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be, thankfully they were still close enough to the river that the rushing water drowned out most of the noise.

“Alright, ready to go!” Lance said over his shoulder. 

“Hang on, I’m gonna go too.” Keith called back and before Lance could even respond, his left arm was pulled over toward Keith and he snapped his eyes shut. Lance hadn’t had time to prepare for this. Keith didn’t do anything like a normal human so it hadn’t occurred to him that nature might call on him too. But of course it had and Keith probably had his dick out right now, inches from Lance and holy shit. What was he supposed to do with that information? Obviously he couldn’t go on living as if he hadn’t had the opportunity to sneak a peek at Keith’s junk. His life was never going to be the same because from this point until the end of time he was going to remember that he had been this fucking close to Keith’s dick.

What would a person who wasn’t having sexy thoughts about Keith be doing right now? They’d probably just be standing there waiting and not having their third meltdown of the day. Lance kept his eyes shut, but screwed up his face into something he thought a normal, non-sexually aroused person would look like. 

“Do you have to take a shit?” came Keith’s voice, he sounded concerned. Lance opened an eye slowly and saw Keith studying him intently. 

“What?” he asked stupidly.

“Your face kind of looks like you’re constipated,” Keith explained, gesturing vaguely toward Lance’s stomach.

“Wha--? No! I don’t have to shit. I was just--thinking,” Lance stammered indignantly.

“Well be careful, don’t hurt yourself,” Keith joked, but with a wicked grin quirking up the corners of his mouth.

“I--You’re--Ugh!” Lance growled. He spun around dramatically and walked (stomped) away, jerking Keith along. Keith laughed at him, but let Lance take the lead. He must be an idiot for liking Keith. He was the most irritating person in the universe and Lance wasn’t sure if he wanted to hit him or tear his clothes off. It was sickening.

\--------

The small amount of light leftover from the sunset faded quickly, but they kept moving forward despite the increasing darkness. Eventually it reached the point where it was so dark, they were hardly able to see each other. The forest had grown eerily quiet and Lance felt the events of the day catching up with him. He rubbed at his tired eyes, they’d been through a lot today and his legs were killing him from traveling so far in sneakers that definitely did not have the kind of support this journey required. 

“Hey, man. I think I’m gonna have to call it a night. I need to sleep.” Lance yawned and stretched his arms out.

“‘Sleep?’” Keith repeated as if he had never heard the word. He tracked the movement of Lance’s arms as he lifted his to accommodate the motion. “We can’t sleep. We have to keep going.” 

“Come on, dude. We don’t even know where we’re headed. What’s it gonna hurt if we just sleep for a couple hours?”

“We are headed in the right direction. And we could get there a whole lot sooner if we keep walking.” Keith turned slightly as if to resume walking and tugged on the handcuffs so Lance would follow his lead.

“Dude,” Lance started impatiently, “I don’t think it makes a difference if we’re here or a few miles further into this never ending forest; the team’s gonna have just as hard a time finding us no matter where we are.”

Keith fixed him with a stony glare and spoke through gritted teeth, “If we keep going, we’ll get to where the pod is and can take that back to the ship and meet them there.”

Lance sensed that Keith really believed what he was saying, that they would make it back to those damn berry bushes and find the pod. But he could also tell how exhausted Keith was. There were slight bags under his eyes, his hair looked like a rat had nested in it, and he’d been walking at a pace so slow that a turtle could have overtaken him. Continuing to (aimlessly) trudge through the forest when they were both clearly exhausted was not going to do either of them any favors. 

“Sorry, Mullet,” he said lightly and plopped down onto the ground, crossing his legs so Keith would see how serious he was. “I'm done. If you want to keep on going, you’ll to have drag me, cause I'm not walking any more.” 

Keith took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, somehow managing to say ‘I would rather be handcuffed to a gorilla’ without even speaking a word. Lance pretended not to notice and reached over to pat the ground to his left with his right hand, inviting Keith to join him. Keith pressed his lips into a line but his shoulders slumped and he eyed the spot with reluctant consideration. Lance made it easy for him by scooting back so he was leaning against a tree and closed his eyes. He waited a few moments before Keith moodily plopped down beside him, grumbling under his breath the whole time. 

Without opening his eyes, Lance asked “How can you do something as neutral as sit down while projecting grumpiness on an Oscar the Grouch kind of level?” 

“Who’s Oscar the Grouch?” Keith asked without a hint of sarcasm.

Lance sighed. “You know, sometimes I wonder if you were actually raised by wolves and that’s why you don’t get any of my pop culture references. It would explain a lot.” 

“What’s your excuse then?” Keith grumbled and Lance felt him shove his foot with his own in a surprisingly ungrumpy way. 

Lance cracked an eye open to check out what the non-grumpy shove had meant. Keith was sitting cross-legged, leaning against the tree, and watching Lance with a grin that looked almost fond. Or maybe Lance was reading too much into it and Keith just had gas or something. Either way, Lance was sure to take a mental picture of it because it made his stomach drop straight to his feet. When Keith saw Lance looking, he cleared his throat and turned to look out at the forest, letting the dangerously enticing smile fade away. Lance looked away too so Keith wouldn’t notice the dopey expression he knew he was wearing. He let his eyes fall shut and tried not to think too much about how Keith’s hand brushed up against his and Keith just fucking left it there.

\----------

It felt like no time had past when Lance woke up with a terrible pain in his neck. Apparently sleeping propped up against a tree was not a good idea. He lifted his hand and rubbed at his sore muscles. Next to him, Keith was curled up on his side, wisely not using the tree as a pillow, but instead had his cuffed arm tucked underneath his head. Lance did his best not to move his own arm so that he wouldn’t jostle Keith. Knowing that this was a very rare opportunity to admire Keith without being caught, Lance leaned back against the tree again to soak up the image in front of him. 

Keith was breathing steadily, his chest expanding and stretching his black tee shirt when he inhaled. Unfortunately, his shirt hadn’t ridden up to expose any skin this time, but that was fine. Lance didn’t want to start drooling anyway. He could, however, see Keith’s neck and a small part of his collarbone and while he had never really paid attention to that area before, it now looked just as inviting as the rest of him. Lance sighed unintentionally and moved his gaze up to study Keith’s face. He looked more peaceful than Lance had ever see him. He must have been dreaming about something too, because a ghost of a smile was playing across his lips. There was something incredibly satisfying about seeing Keith, Voltron’s resident badass, smiling so adorably in his sleep.

Keith’s hair was falling over his eyes and Lance desperately wanted to reach out and push a few strands back. He looked around quickly before he remembered that they were completely alone and then raised his free hand to move them. He was about an inch from Keith’s hair when he came to his senses and snatched his hand back, actually gagging at himself in the process. He was willing to accept that he liked Keith; he was not prepared to become all sappy about it. 

About half an hour passed of Lance quietly watching Keith sleep (in a totally non-creepy way) and cursing himself the entire time. Lance had already decided he was an idiot, but staring at the guy he had the hots for, while sitting like a foot away for such a long period of time was next level. He wasn’t just falling down the rabbit hole; he was diving head first. 

When Keith finally woke up, Lance did his best to look like he was just casually staring off into the distance. Keith yawned and sounded like he was stretching out his limbs. Lance thought it was for the best he didn’t see that because he had worked himself up so much at that point, that he probably would have straddled him intentionally this time.

“I guess we’re still handcuffed together and that wasn’t just a dream,” Keith murmured sleepily after feeling the resistance of the cuff when he attempted to move his hand. 

“Nope, this is real life and you're still stuck with me,” Lance paused. “But it's nice to know you dream about me,” he finished, turning to face Keith with a wink and his most winning smile. He hadn’t actually meant to wink but it had happened before he could stop himself. 

“Shut up,” Keith groaned, rolling his eyes. He must have been partially asleep still to have such a lame comeback, his cheeks were a little pink though so Lance decided that the wink had definitely been a good idea. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes after that. The darkness of night had slowly grown more bearable during the time Lance had waited for Keith to wake up, and now the forest was beginning to fill with the brightness of early morning. He groaned as he stood up, Keith following with his own noise of displeasure. Lance stretched his arms up over his head and turned his head from side to side, trying to work out the tension he still felt.

“Okay, we seriously need to find our way back to the castle today because I can’t go another night on the ground. I need my beauty sleep and last night hardly even qualified as regular sleep.” Lance complained as he rolled his shoulders. When Keith didn’t reply with a snarky comment Lance said, “Keith? You good, buddy?”

“Huh? Yeah, I’m listening,” Keith said hurriedly. He was staring at Lance with an unreadable expression on his face. Lance’s heart skipped a beat at the intensity of his gaze, but he couldn’t work out what it meant. When he managed to lock eyes with Keith, he gave him a questioning look and Keith glanced away quickly, scratching the back of his neck like Lance had caught him doing something he shouldn’t.

“Wow, I guess sleeping out here was even worse for you than it was for me. You’re acting like your brain got fried,” Lance said, mostly to distract himself from the wild thumping in his chest. “And I don’t know if there is any way to fix the disaster that is your mullet, cause let me tell you, man, it’s rough.” Momentarily forgetting the five million reasons why it was a bad idea, he stepped forward and ruffled Keith’s hair so that it really was a disaster. 

Keith sucked in a breath the second Lance’s hand touched his head, his entire body going stiff. Only his eyes moved as they frantically darted back and forth over Lance’s face. Lance tried to move and take a step back, but it seemed that his brain was no longer connected to his legs because he stayed exactly where he was, his face way too close to Keith’s but also not nearly close enough. A part of Lance that he definitely wasn’t in control of moved his hand from where it was tangled in Keith’s hair to the base of his neck. Lance decided that the hand was actually somehow a robotic Galra arm like Shiro’s and that it was rebelling against him by taking things a step further and moving his thumb in a slow circular motion. So this was how the Galra planned to take down Voltron. Sexy paladin mind control.

Keith’s eyes slipped shut and he let out a breath, the warmth of it fanning across Lance’s cheeks. And that was it for Lance. He leaned forward, closing the small distance between them and pressed his lips to Keith’s. It wasn’t like he had expected at all, Keith’s lips were way softer than he ever thought they would be and the pleasant feeling bubbling up in Lance’s stomach was so much stronger than he was prepared for. His body again reacted without asking him and suddenly he had a hand cupping Keith’s face and he was tilting his head to bring him in closer.

It occurred to Lance then that Keith hadn’t actually responded in any way, he was still standing there like a statue. Immediately, Lance dropped his hands and finally got through to his damn legs and got them to take an unsteady step away from Keith, whose eyes fluttered open as Lance scrambled to come up with something to say.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t--” Lance started.

“We kissed,” Keith interrupted, straight to the point as usual. Lance had never welcomed his bluntness less. 

“Uh, n--no. Not really,” Lance spat out in a panic. An image of Keith punching Lance in the face so hard he flew all the way back to Earth popped into his mind and the best way he could think to avoid that scenario was to just play the whole thing off as if it was no big deal--or better yet, that it hadn’t even happened at all.

“What do you mean?” Keith asked, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion. The corners of his mouth were turned down, but Lance had seen what Keith looked like when he was really mad and this wasn’t like that. 

“Um, I mean, you just kind of stood there like…not moving. So it doesn’t really count, right?” He tried to smile convincingly and failed epicly.

Keith’s frown deepened, but he seemed to make his mind up about something and said, “Does this count?” 

He reached forward and grabbed a fistful of Lance’s shirt, barely giving Lance time to yelp before their mouths came crashing back together. And wow, okay now it really felt amazing. It wasn’t the most graceful kiss at first, but with Keith actively engaging, Lance swore he felt actual fireworks exploding not just in his heart or his stomach, but his everywhere. Keith kept one hand fisted in Lance’s shirt and brought the handcuffed one up to hold Lance’s face as he adjusted their position. Lance sighed at the sensation the new angle provided and rested his cuffed hand on Keith’s forearm because he kind of had no other choice. His entire body tingled and every place Keith touched him burned as if it were on fire.

Somewhere along the line Keith slipped his tongue into Lance’s mouth, doing all kinds of magical things that Lance couldn’t help but moan into (seriously, where did he learn that?!) Apparently Keith was into the moaning though, because he brought both his hands down to Lance’s waist and pulled them right up against each other so that Lance could feel every inch of Keith’s chest. And oh man, did he have a really nice chest. Lance moved his free hand up into Keith’s hair (why was the damn mullet suddenly really sexy?) and pulled just a little so Keith tipped his head upward. His other hand stayed clasped on Keith’s side since he couldn’t move it any further away from where Keith’s hands were holding his hips. Lance briefly wished that he had a handcuff kink since it seemed like the stupid things were going to have a starring role in this activity, but nope, not into the handcuffs. They were just seriously preventing him from touching more of Keith. He had never despised an inanimate object more in his life. 

Even with the cuffs, Lance was so giddy about having this much Keith all up in his personal space that he decided to test his luck by gently biting down on Keith’s lower lip. Keith responded by digging his fingers into Lance’s skin and rocking his hips forward into Lance’s, completely knocking the air out of him. Lance really had not been expecting Keith to be the one to get things moving below the belt, but the surprise was quickly overshadowed by the actual sensation of Keith rubbing against his dick and holy shit he did it again. It forced him to withdraw from Keith’s mouth to pant heavily against his neck because goddamn his jeans were killing him. Then, since he was already there, he left a trail of kisses from Keith’s collarbone all the way to right below his ear, all the while wondering how Keith would react if he tried to very casually undo the button on his jeans. Keith let out the sexiest fucking moan Lance had ever heard and ground their hips together again. Lance smirked to himself, making a mental note to remember to tease Keith about being such a cliche with the whole neck kiss swoon thing, and made his way back up to his mouth. 

Keith hummed contentedly against his lips and began walking them backwards until Lance felt his back smack into a tree, which was a huge relief because his knees were in serious danger of giving out underneath him, but apparently Keith was going strong in the standing up department, the jerk. Keith didn’t seem to notice that Lance had been seconds from falling right on his ass, which was just fine with Lance. Keith detached both of their bayards from their hips and tossed them off to the side. Then he hooked a finger through one of Lance’s belt loops and stuck the other hand up under his shirt, running his hand over Lance’s stomach. Lance gave up the battle with his dick (he’d been trying play it cool with the grinding, but what the hell) and slipped one of his legs between Keith’s and started to roll his hips into Keith’s for real. Whatever stretchy-ass material Keith’s pants were made of did him absolutely no favors because Lance had a very good idea of just how excited he was and smiled into Keith’s mouth at the thought. Keith grunted and shifted so he could go after Lance’s neck and--oh, that was why he had liked it so much. Turns out he and Keith both had the neck kiss swoon gene. Who knew? His plans to make fun of Keith for it were sent to the Joke Graveyard with the realization that Keith could totally dish it right back to him. 

“Keith,” he managed to get out, only way breathier than he had intended. He was vaguely aware somewhere in the back of his mind that he should be wondering where the hell this had come from and since when exactly was Keith into him, but Keith returned his attention to Lance’s mouth and did a crazy tongue thing in time with a thrust of his hips that made Lance completely lose that train of thought. He may have also melted slightly. 

Lance reluctantly broke away from Keith, because as boring as it was to spend time on something as mundane as breathing, he really needed to do it if he wanted to not pass out, because that would have been a serious boner-killer. Lance leaned his forehead against Keith’s and puffed out a breath. His fingers toyed with the waistband of Keith’s pants, wondering if it would be too much to dip them underneath.

Keith answered his silent question by putting a hand directly on the front of Lance’s jeans and grabbing the zipper. “Is this okay?” he asked, pulling his head back slightly so he could look Lance in the eye. 

Lance’s heart skipped about ten beats and the “Fuck yes,” he said in response was probably a little too loud as he practically lunged at Keith and started up right where they had left off. Keith made a noise in that delicious way of his and reached for Lance’s belt. Lance wished that Keith still had his bayard so he could’ve just sliced his belt off because he was certain the stupid thing was about to prevent Keith from getting at him for at least five seconds (which was way too long). But because Keith was Keith, he undid Lance’s belt (with just his left hand, the fucker) without a problem, despite the fact that he was breathing like he’d just gotten out of a battle and Lance was pretty thoroughly obscuring his view. Lance wanted to be annoyed at his perfection, but instead he chose to keep his mouth shut because he had never been this hard in his entire life, and for once, Lance was the one actually benefiting from Keith’s inability to ever stop being an awesome badass.

After defeating his belt, Keith unbuttoned, unzipped and had his hands on Lance in no time, rubbing him through his underwear. Lance’s eyes definitely did not roll back into his head with pleasure, except that they totally did because holy hell, nothing had ever been that awesome. Lance braced his shoulders back against the tree for leverage and arched his lower body further into Keith’s hand, seeking out as much friction as he could get. He looked down, transfixed at the sight of Keith’s hand moving up and down over his underwear (he should have gone commando), and he knew he wasn’t going to last long. He drew Keith’s lips back to his and reached for his belt because no way was Keith about to make him come before he’d even touched Keith’s junk. Unfortunately, Lance wasn’t as suave as Keith (but only when it came to undoing belts singlehandedly), and fumbled with the buckle until Keith removed his hand from Lance to help. Lance whimpered (in a manly way) at the loss of contact, but once Keith had tugged his pants and boxers down just a little, he took Lance’s free hand and put it right on him, skin on skin. 

Keith placed his hand over Lance’s, guiding it up and down, showing Lance what he liked. Lance got the hang of it pretty quickly, and when Keith dropped his hand, Lance brought his own up to his mouth, licked it, and went right back to business. Keith was only able to get out a throaty “Shit,” before he buried his face in Lance’s shirt. Lance chuckled softly at his small victory and couldn’t resist adding a little twist of his wrist on the next stroke. Keith let out a sigh that went straight to Lance’s dick and he thrust his hips forward, searching for anything at all that he could rub up against. Thankfully, Keith took pity on him. He yanked Lance’s underwear down and started really going to town. 

Apart from the almost unbearable pleasure Lance was currently in, the only thing he could focus on was Keith. How Keith felt in his hand and how his hips pushed into Lance’s. How he was breathing heavily against Lance’s neck, occasionally leaving sloppy kisses at the base. Or even how Keith was absolutely rocking his world with only his left hand because the fucking handcuffs were still an issue. As if he could read his mind, Keith interlocked their fingers on their cuffed hands and lifted them up out of the way above Lance’s head. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Oh, that’s right, because Keith was currently giving him a handjob. That’s why. 

Lance could feel himself getting closer and closer to sweet nirvana. He was also pretty sure he was talking (babbling), but he was so absorbed in the moment that there was no point in attempting to staunch the endless flow of word vomit. He was pretty sure something along the lines of “God, you’re so hot” spilled out and Keith absolutely exploded all over his hand (ha! Point Lance). And Lance took back what he thought earlier about the sexiest noise ever because he was pretty sure the little stuttering huff of breath Keith just let out could actually kill him. Luckily for Lance, he survived, but it did bring him right up to the edge and superhuman Keith didn’t slow down for even a second, despite the tremors shaking his body and Lance came with so much force he almost fell over. Lance squeezed their joined hands with the pretense of romance but in actuality, he was just clinging to Keith so he wouldn’t tip over. So maybe he only half survived. 

It took them both a few minutes to get their breathing under control, but when they had Lance said, mostly into Keith’s hair, “Okay, I’ve done stuff before, but that was by far the hottest.”

“That was actually the first time I’ve done anything like that,” Keith mumbled, not bothering to untangle himself from Lance.

“Seriously?!” Lance said, unable to hide the shock in his voice. “How are you even real? You just did all that with zero experience, are you good at everything?” 

Instead of waiting for a response from Keith, Lance just rolled his eyes and groaned, “Ugh, I hate you.”

Keith pulled back from him slightly to look at him skeptically. He raised an eyebrow at Lance, dropped his gaze down between their bodies, and looked at Lance for a moment before saying, “That explains why your hand is still in my pants.”

Lance huffed and pulled his hand out of Keith’s pants. “Fine, I don’t. But you are the most insufferable person I’ve ever met,” he declared and he lifted his sticky hand to his mouth and licked it clean. It was kind of gross, but whatever, it wasn’t any worse than that space goop the paladins had to eat. Keith looked stunned with his wide eyes and open mouth, but also like he wanted to jump Lance a second time. Definitely worth it, he decided, and helped Keith out by closing his mouth for him and leaning in for a kiss. 

For a second, Lance wasn’t sure if Keith would kiss him. Maybe he had just been proving a point with the whole shoving Lance up against a tree and kissing him (among other things) to within an inch of his life. But Keith did kiss him back and Lance’s stomach did a flip at the idea of Keith actually, possibly liking him the same way.

He gave Keith one last kiss before pulling away so he could do up his pants for him. Now that he wasn’t in the middle of losing his mind, he was able to work the buckle on Keith’s belt pretty easily. After they spent a few minutes rearranging their clothes into a slightly less disheveled state, they picked up their bayards and began to head over to the river they’d been following the day before to clean up. Lance noticed that while Keith’s clothes looked pretty much normal considering all the strenuous activity they’d done, his hair still looked like he’d been in a windstorm. Lance allowed himself a moment of quiet satisfaction knowing that even though they had been kidnapped by aliens, been smacked in the head with tree branches, and slept in the forest, he was still part of the reason Keith’s hair was so insane. 

He ran his fingers through his own hair a few times in an effort to look more put together than Keith, “You look like you just got off against a tree.”

“I wonder why,” Keith said in an exasperated voice. “By the way, you missed something,” he reached over and plucked a twig out of Lance’s hair. He twirled the twig in front of Lance’s face “Guess I’m not the only one.” 

Lance elected to ignore that and instead chose to change topics completely. “So, you did everything back there with your left hand.”

Keith nodded.

“I’ll admit, you were pretty good, but,” he paused for dramatic effect. Keith looked confused. “I’d love to see what you can do with your right hand,” he finished with a wink. 

Keith looked startled and blushed again in that annoyingly endearing way. “Uh,” he started after opening his mouth and closing it again like a fish. He blinked a few times and Lance mentally slapped himself for going right in with the flirting when he still didn’t know where they stood. Maybe Keith didn’t want there to be a second time. Maybe he actually regretted doing it. 

“Unless you don’t want to,” Lance went on hurriedly. He was trying really hard not to panic. “That’s cool too. I get it if it was just some pent up sexual tension thing and you’re not actually into me like that. I mean, we do have some crazy chemistry in the sexy times department, but--”

“I am,” Keith interrupted. 

“You’re what?” Lance asked.

Keith rolled his eyes. “I am into you like that. I don’t really understand it, and frankly I don’t know if I want to, but somehow...I am. I wouldn’t have done any of that if I wasn’t.” 

“Wow, Keith. I didn’t realize you were such a romantic. I feel so overcome with emotion I may faint!” he pressed the back of his hand to his forehead and leaned heavily against Keith like a damsel in distress, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Hopefully Keith couldn’t tell that everything he had just said was true and that his heart was beating like crazy. 

“At least I actually said it. You’re just acting like a twelve year old again,” Keith argued.

“I thought you said I was six earlier? Am I moving up in the world?” Lance asked as he stood up properly again. Keith gave him a withering look and made to turn away. “I’m into you too, in case that wasn’t obvious,” he blurted before he could psych himself out too much. 

Keith studied him for a moment with a long suffering expression. Lance could tell that Keith was doing his best to keep up the award winning grumpy steak, but the corners of his mouth were twitching upwards into an undeniable smile. Lance felt like his own face was going to split in two from how huge his grin was. 

“This is gross,” Keith commented after they had stared at each other like idiots for too long. 

“Agreed,” Lance said and tore his gaze away from Keith so they could make it to the river some time this decade.

As they were crouched at the edge of the water washing their hands, a thunderous roar pierced the quiet of the moment . They both jumped at the sound and Keith had his bayard ready in an instant. It took a second roar echoing through the forest before Lance recognized the sound as one of the lions. He craned his head upwards, searching the skies beyond the treetops for any of the lions. He couldn’t see much beyond the leaves of the trees but he didn’t have to wait long before the yellow lion flew past just above the treetops. Lance watched as Hunk and the yellow lion flew a bit further before touching down in a clearing not too far away. 

“Hunk!” Lance called excitedly even though he knew Hunk couldn’t hear him in his lion. He took a step toward Yellow but Keith tugged him back.

Keith looked like he was visibly struggling with something. Maybe he had a wedgie? “Meet me in my room tonight?” he finally asked with a small smile. 

Lance brandished the handcuffs in front of Keith’s face. “Dude, I don’t think I have a choice seeing as how we’ll probably be stuck together until we die!” He turned to continue making his way toward Yellow and pulled Keith along with him. Lance figured that the team would probably be able to find some way to dismantle the handcuffs once they were back at the castle, but even if they didn’t, it wouldn’t be so bad. 

That was a lie, it would totally suck. Lance was still convinced that it was just pure luck neither of them had attempted to actually kill the other during this whole ordeal. The only upside to being stuck together like this would be the easy access it provided. Either way, he would definitely be in Keith’s room later.

**Author's Note:**

> The biggest thank you ever to mischiefmanager for being the most amazing person in the world and helping me with literally everything. An equally big thank you to the amazing Jillian_Bowes for being a superhuman editor.


End file.
